U.S. Monster Movie Database

The U.S. Monster Movie Database section includes all U.S. produced monster movies. All International monster movies and joint U.S./International produced films are in the International Monster Movie Database. Each is listed with year of release, to the right of the title is the rating of each film via IMDB. Each listing here on this page is a small piece of the full article, the link at the bottom of each post goes to the full article that is also here within the site (safe, no external links). Information in this section comes from Wikipedia, IMDB, and other sources.

​King Kong (1933)

* 7.9/10

King Kong is a 1933 American pre-Code monster adventure film directed and produced by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. The screenplay by James Ashmore Creelman and Ruth Rose was from an idea conceived by Cooper and Edgar Wallace. It stars Fay Wray, Bruce Cabot and Robert Armstrong, and opened in New York City on March 2, 1933, to rave reviews. It has been ranked by Rotten Tomatoes as the greatest horror film of all time and the twentieth greatest film of all time.

The film tells of a gigantic, prehistoric, island-dwelling ape called Kong who dies in an attempt to possess a beautiful young woman. King Kong is especially noted for its stop-motion animation by Willis O'Brien and a groundbreaking musical score by Max Steiner. In 1991, it was deemed "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. A sequel quickly followed that same year with The Son of Kong, featuring Little Kong. In the 1960s, Toho produced King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), pitting a much larger Kong against Toho's own Godzilla, and King Kong Escapes (1967), based on The King Kong Show (1966–1969) from Rankin/Bass Productions. It has been remade twice, in 1976 and 2005, while a reboot, Kong: Skull Island, was released in 2017.

PlotIn New York Harbor, filmmaker Carl Denham, famous for making wildlife films in remote and exotic locations, charters Captain Englehorn's ship, the Venture for his new project, but is unable to secure an actress for a female role he has reluctantly added to the script. Due to adventure that night, Denham searches the streets of New York for a suitable woman. He meets Ann Darrow and convinces her to join him for what he proposes as the adventure of a lifetime. The Venture quickly gets underway and, during the voyage, the surly first mate, Jack Driscoll, gradually falls in love with Ann.

​Son Of Kong (1933)

* 5.8/10

The Son of Kong is a 1933 American Pre-Code adventure monster film produced by RKO Pictures. Directed by Ernest Schoedsack and featuring special effects by Buzz Gibson and Willis O'Brien, the film starred Robert Armstrong, Helen Mack and Frank Reicher. This film is the lesser-known sequel to King Kong and was released just nine months after its predecessor.

PlotThe story picks up about a month after the dramatic finale of the previous film and follows the further adventures of filmmaker Carl Denham, now implicated in numerous lawsuits following the destruction brought by Kong. Carl Denham leaves New York City with the captain of the Venture, Captain Englehorn, who is certain it is just a matter of time before he is similarly served. Their efforts to make money shipping cargo around the Orient are less than successful. In the Dutch port of Dakang, Carl Denham is amused to see there's a "show" being presented, so he and Captain Englehorn attend. It turns out to be a series of performing monkeys, capped by a song ("Runaway Blues") sung by a young woman named Hilda Petersen.

That night, Hilda's father, who runs the show, stays up drinking with a Norwegian skipper named Nils Helstrom, who had lost his ship under questionable circumstances. The two men fight and Hilda's father is killed, their tent burns down and Hilda releases all the monkeys. Carl Denham and Englehorn run into Helstrom, who was the man that sold Carl Denham the map to Kong's Island, and he convinces the two that there was a treasure on the island. Carl Denham and Captain Englehorn agree to go back and try to retrieve it. Later, Denham meets Hilda while she is trying to recapture her monkeys and tries to cheer her up.

​Despite her pleas, Carl Denham refuses to take her with him when he leaves Dakang. Shortly after they put out to sea, however, Hilda is found stowing away on board.

Mighty Joe Young (1949)

* 7.0/10

​Mighty Joe Young (a.k.a. Mr. Joseph Young of Africa and The Great Joe Young) is a 1949 American black-and-white fantasy film from RKO Radio Pictures made by the same creative team responsible for King Kong (1933). Produced by Merian C. Cooper, who wrote the story, and Ruth Rose who wrote the screenplay, the film was directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack and stars Robert Armstrong (who appears in both films), Terry Moore, and Ben Johnson in his first credited screen role.

Mighty Joe Young tells the story of a young woman, Jill Young, living on her father's ranch in Africa, who has raised the title character, a giant gorilla, from an infant and years later brings him to Hollywood seeking her fortune so she can save the family homestead.

PlotIn 1937 Tanganyika Territory, Africa, eight-year-old Jill Young (Lora Lee Michel) is living with her father on his ranch. While in her yard, two Africans come by with an orphaned baby gorilla; Jill so wants a pet that she trades her toys and money for him, vowing to always care for the gorilla.

Twelve years later, Max O'Hara (Robert Armstrong) and sidekick Gregg (Ben Johnson) are on a trip to Africa looking for animals to headline in O'Hara's new Hollywood nightclub. The two men have captured several lions and are about to leave Tanganyika Territory when gorilla Joe Young appears, now 12 feet (3.7 m) tall and weighing 2,000 pounds (910 kg). When a caged lion bites Joe's fingers, he goes on a rampage. Visualizing Joe as their big nightclub attraction, Max and Gregg try to rope him, but he throws both men from their horses and breaks free of their ropes. A grown Jill Young (Terry Moore) arrives, calming Joe down. She is furious with both men and storms off with Joe.

​The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953)

* 6.7/10

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a 1953 American black-and-white science fiction monster film from Warner Bros., produced by Jack Dietz and Hal E. Chester, directed by Eugène Lourié, that stars Paul Christian, Paula Raymond, Cecil Kellaway, and Kenneth Tobey. The film's stop-motion animation special effects are by Ray Harryhausen. Its screenplay is based on Ray Bradbury's short story The Fog Horn, specifically the scene where a lighthouse is destroyed by the title character.

The storyline concerns a fictional dinosaur, the Rhedosaurus, which is released from its frozen, hibernating state by an atomic bomb test in the Arctic Circle. The beast begins to wreak a path of destruction as it travels southward, eventually arriving at its ancient spawning grounds, which includes New York City.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was one of the first atomic monster movies which helped inspire a generation of creature features.

PlotFar north of the Arctic Circle, a nuclear bomb test, dubbed "Operation Experiment", is conducted. Prophetically, right after the blast, physicist Thomas Nesbitt muses, "What the cumulative effects of all these atomic explosions and tests will be, only time will tell". No sooner said, the explosion awakens a 30-foot (9.1 m) tall, 100-foot (30.5 m) long carnivorous animal known as Rhedosaurus, thawing it out of the ice where it had been held in suspended animation. Nesbitt is the only surviving witness to the beast's awakening and is later dismissed out-of-hand as being delirious at the time of his "sighting". Despite the skepticism, he persists, knowing what he saw.

Them! (1954)

* 7.3/10

Them! is a 1954 American black-and-white science fiction monster movie from Warner Bros. Pictures, produced by David Weisbart, directed by Gordon Douglas, that stars James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon and James Arness. The film is based on an original story treatment by George Worthing Yates, which was then developed into a screenplay by Ted Sherdeman and Russell Hughes.

Them! is one of the first of the 1950s "nuclear monster" films, and the first "big bug" feature.

A nest of gigantic irradiated ants is discovered in the New Mexico desert; they quickly become a national threat when it is discovered that two young queen ants and their consorts have escaped to establish new nests. The national search that follows finally culminates in a battle with Them in the concrete spillways and sewers of Los Angeles.

PlotNew Mexico State Police Sgt. Ben Peterson and Trooper Ed Blackburn discover a little girl wandering the desert in a state of shock near Alamogordo. They take her to a nearby recreational trailer, located by a pilot in a spotter plane. They find evidence that the little girl had been in the trailer when it was attacked and nearly destroyed by someone or something.

​Later, it is discovered that the trailer was owned by a FBI Special Agent named Ellinson, who was on vacation with his wife, son, and daughter; other members of the girl's family cannot be found at the trailer site. After being placed in an ambulance to be taken for hospital treatment of her catatonic state, the child briefly reacts to a strange, pulsating high-pitched sound from the dessert by sitting up in the stretcher. No one else notices her reaction, and when the noise stops, the girl lays back on the stretcher.

​General store owner "Gramps" Johnson is found dead, a wall of his store having been partially torn out.

Tarantula (1955)

* 6.5/10

Tarantula is a 1955 American black-and-white science fiction giant monster film from Universal Pictures, produced by William Alland, directed by Jack Arnold, that stars John Agar, Mara Corday, and Leo G. Carroll. The screenplay by Robert M. Fresco and Martin Berkeley was based on a story by Arnold, which was in turn inspired by Fresco's teleplay for the 1955 Science Fiction Theatre episode, "No Food for Thought", that Arnold also directed.

PlotA severely deformed man stumbles through the Arizona desert, falls and dies. Dr. Matt Hastings, a doctor in the nearby small town of Desert Rock, is called in by the sheriff to examine the body at the local mortuary. Asked to define the cause of death, he finds himself perplexed: the deceased – biological research scientist Eric Jacobs – was someone he knew and had just seen recently, and whose deformity appears to be acromegaly, a distortion which takes years to reach its apparent present state. Dr. Hastings asks to be allowed to perform an autopsy to clarify the diagnosis. The sheriff refuses, judging an autopsy unnecessary because there is no indication of foul play. Hastings then approaches Jacobs' colleague, Dr. Gerald Deemer, who more bluntly refuses permission, then signs Jacobs' death certificate in lieu of Hastings, with heart disease listed as the cause of death.

Bothered still by the anomaly, and also by Deemer's abruptness, Hastings later drives to Deemer's combined home and research lab, located in an isolated mansion in the desert far from town. Deemer apologizes for his hostility, blaming it on his grief, then insists that Jacobs had developed acromegaly incredibly rapidly, over just four days.

​He cannot offer an explanation but attempts to convince Hastings this was only an anomaly, not a result of anything sinister. Hastings appears to accept this apology.

It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955)

* 5.9/10

It Came from Beneath the Sea is a 1955 American black-and-white science fiction giant monster film from Columbia Pictures, produced by Sam Katzman and Charles Schneer, directed by Robert Gordon, that stars Kenneth Tobey, Faith Domergue, and Donald Curtis.

The script by George Worthing Yates was designed to showcase the stop motion animation special effects of Ray Harryhausen.

It Came from Beneath the Sea was released as the top half of a double bill with Creature with the Atom Brain.

PlotA nuclear submarine on maneuvers in the Pacific Ocean, captained by Commander Pete Mathews (Kenneth Tobey), comes into contact with a massive sonar return. The boat is disabled but manages to free itself and return to Pearl Harbor. Tissue from a huge sea creature is discovered jammed in the submarine's dive planes.

A man-and-woman team of marine biologists, Lesley Joyce (Faith Domergue) and John Carter (Donald Curtis), is called in; they identify the tissue as being a small part of a gigantic octopus. The military authorities scoff, but are finally persuaded after receiving reports of missing swimmers and ships at sea being pulled under by a large animal. Both scientists conclude that the creature is from the Mindanao Deep, having been forced from its natural habitat by hydrogen bomb testing in the area, which has made the giant octopus radioactive, driving off its natural food supply.

​The scientists suggest the disappearances of a Japanese fishing fleet and a Siberian seal boat may be the work of the foraging giant.

Monster From Green Hell (1957)

* 3.4/10

Monster from Green Hell is a 1957 science fiction B movie originally released as a double feature with the 1957 film The Brain from Planet Arous. It was then re-released in 1958 as the top half of another double feature with the English-dubbed and re-edited version of the Japanese kaiju film Half Human.

PlotIn preparation for sending a manned rocket into space, American scientists Dr. Quent Brady and Dan Morgan are put in charge of a program that sends various animals and insects into space to test their survival rates. After one of their rockets carrying wasps malfunctions and goes off course, a computer calculates that the rocket is likely to land somewhere off the coast of Africa.

Some time later, in a remote part of Africa, Dr. Lorentz and his daughter Lorna perform an autopsy on a native and determine that he died of paralysis of the nerve centers caused by an injection of a massive amount of venom. Arobi, Lorentz's African assistant, then informs him that a monster is believed to be terrorizing people and animals in an area known as Green Hell.

Several months later, Brady reads a newspaper account of turmoil in Central Africa caused by gigantic monsters and surmises that the wasps in the missing rocket were exposed to huge amounts of cosmic radiation because an earlier, minimal overexposure had resulted in the birth of a spider crab twice the size of its mother. Brady and Morgan request a leave of absence from Washington and head for Africa to investigate.

​In Libreville, equatorial Africa, the territorial agent makes plans for them to travel to meet Dr. Lorentz. Once the safari is ready, Mahri, an Arab, leads Brady and Morgan on the four-hundred mile trek to Lorentz's hospital.

The Deadly Mantis (1957)

* 4.8/10

The Deadly Mantis is a 1957 American science-fiction monster film produced by William Alland for Universal-International. It was directed by Nathan Juran from a screenplay by Martin Berkeley based on a story by producer William Alland. The film stars Craig Stevens, William Hopper, Alix Talton, and Pat Conway.

The film was released in 1957 as a double feature with the spy film The Girl in the Kremlin. In February 1997, The Deadly Mantis was featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

PlotIn the South Seas, a volcano explodes, eventually causing North Pole icebergs to shift. Below the melting polar ice caps, a 200-foot-long praying mantis, trapped in the ice for millions of years, begins to stir. Soon after, the military personnel at Red Eagle One, a military station in northern Canada that monitors information gathered from the Distant Early Warning Line, realize that the men at one of their outposts are not responding to calls. Commanding officer Col. Joe Parkman (Craig Stevens) flies there to investigate, and finds the post destroyed, its men gone, and giant slashes left in the snow outside.

When a radar blip is sighted, Joe sends his pilots out to investigate, but their intended target disappears. Soon an Air Force plane is attacked by the deadly mantis. He searches the wreckage, and this time, in addition to the huge slashes, finds a five-foot-long pointed object in the snow. He takes it to General Mark Ford (Donald Randolph) at the Continental Air Defense (CONAD) in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

​20 Million Miles To Earth (1957)

* 6.4/10

20 Million Miles to Earth (a.k.a. The Beast from Space) is a 1957 American black-and-white science fiction giant monster film, produced by Charles H. Schneer's Morningside Productions for Columbia Pictures, directed by Nathan H. Juran, that stars William Hopper, Joan Taylor, and Frank Puglia. The screenplay was written by Bob Williams and Christopher Knopf from an original treatment by Charlott Knight. As with several other Schneer-Columbia collaborations, the film was developed to showcase the stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen.

PlotOff the coast of Sicily, fishermen watch as a spaceship crashes into the sea. They row out to the site and pull two spaceman from the nose-down craft before it completely sinks into the sea.

In Washington, D.C., Major General A.D. McIntosh discovers that the missing spaceship, piloted by Colonel Bob Calder, has been located. As McIntosh flies to the site, Pepe, a little boy, finds and opens a metal capsule on the beach. It contains a gelatinous mass, which he sells to Dr. Leonardo, a zoologist studying sea creatures. Meanwhile, Leonardo's granddaughter Marisa, a third year medical student, is summoned to take care of the injured spacemen. When Calder regains consciousness, he finds his crew mate, Dr. Sharman, in the last throes of the fatal disease that killed his other eight crewmen.

After Marisa returns to the trailer shared with her grandfather, a small creature hatches from the mass, and Leonardo locks it in a cage; by morning, the creature has tripled in size. McIntosh arrives, accompanied by scientist Dr. Justin Uhl, and meets with two representatives of the Italian government, informing them the spaceship has returned from Venus. Leonardo and Marisa hitch the trailer to their truck and head for Rome.

​Beginning Of The End (1957)

* 3.5/10

Beginning of the End is a 1957 independently made American black-and-white science fiction giant insects film, produced and directed by Bert I. Gordon. It stars Peter Graves, Peggie Castle, and Morris Ankrum. The film's storyline concerns an agricultural scientist (Graves) who has successfully grown gigantic vegetables using radiation. Unfortunately, the vegetables are eaten by locusts (the swarming phase of short-horned grasshoppers), which quickly grow to a gigantic size and attack the nearby city of Chicago. Beginning of the End is generally known for its "atrocious" special effects and is considered to be one of the most poorly written and acted science fiction films of the 1950s.

PlotThe film opens with newspaper photojournalist Audrey Aimes (Castle) accidentally stumbling upon a small town (Ludlow, Illinois) which has been inexplicably destroyed. All 150 people in the town are missing, and the evidence indicates they are dead. Incredibly, the local fields are also barren, as if a swarm of locusts had eaten all the crops. Aimes suspects that the military is covering something up, and travels to a nearby United States Department of Agriculture experimental farm to learn what creature might have caused the agricultural destruction. She meets Dr. Ed Wainwright (Graves), who is experimenting with radiation as a means of growing gigantic fruits and vegetables to end world hunger. Dr. Wainwright reports that there have been a number of mysterious incidents nearby, and that locusts have eaten all the radioactive wheat stored in a nearby grain silo.

Gigantic mutant locusts rampage over the countryside. Dr. Wainwright and Ms. Aimes begin to track down the source of the mysterious occurrences, and quickly discover that the locusts which ate the grain have grown to the size of a city bus. The monsters have eaten all the crops in the area, and now are seeking human beings as a means of sustenance.

The Giant Claw (1957)

* 4.3/10

The Giant Claw (a.k.a. The Mark of the Claw) is a 1957 American black-and-white science fiction giant monster film from Columbia Pictures, produced by Sam Katzman, directed by Fred F. Sears, that stars Jeff Morrow and Mara Corday. Both Sears and Katzman were well known as low-budget B film genre filmmakers. The film was released on a double bill with The Night the World Exploded.

PlotMitch MacAfee (Morrow), a civil aeronautical engineer, while engaged in a radar test flight near the North Pole, spots an unidentified flying object. Three jet fighter aircraft are scrambled to pursue and identify the object but one aircraft goes missing. Officials are initially angry at MacAfee over the loss of a pilot and jet over what they believe to be a hoax.

When MacAfee and mathematician Sally Caldwell (Corday) fly back to New York, their aircraft also comes under attack by a UFO. With their pilot dead, they crash-land in the Adirondacks, where Pierre Broussard (Lou Merrill), a French-Canadian farmer, comes to their rescue. MacAfee's report is met with bewilderment and skepticism, but the military authorities are forced to take his story seriously after several more aircraft disappear.

They discover that a gigantic bird "as big as a battleship", purported to come from an antimatter galaxy, is responsible for all the incidents. MacAfee, Caldwell, Dr. Karol Noymann (Edgar Barrier), Gen. Considine (Morris Ankrum), and Gen. Van Buskirk (Robert Shayne) work feverishly to develop a way to defeat the seemingly invincible creature.

The climactic showdown takes place in Manhattan, when the gigantic bird attacks both the Empire State Building and United Nations buildings.

The Monster That Challenged The World (1957)

* 5.8/10

The Monster That Challenged the World (a.k.a. The Jagged Edge and The Kraken) is a 1957 black-and-white science-fiction monster film from Gramercy Pictures, produced by Arthur Gardner, Jules V. Levy, and Arnold Laven (who also directed), and starring Tim Holt and Audrey Dalton. The film was distributed by United Artists on a double bill with The Vampire.

The film concerns an army of giant mollusks that emerge from California's Salton Sea.

PlotIn the Salton Sea, an underwater earthquake causes a crevice to open, releasing prehistoric giant mollusks. A rescue training parachute jump is conducted, but the patrol boat sent to pick up the jumper finds only a floating parachute. One sailor dives in but also disappears. The other sailor screams in terror as something rises from the water.

When the patrol boat does not answer radio calls, Lt. Cmdr. John "Twill" Twillinger (Tim Holt) takes a rescue party out on a second patrol boat to investigate. They find the deserted patrol boat covered in a strange slime; the jumper's body then floats to the surface, now blackened and drained of bodily fluids. Twill takes a sample of the slime to the base lab for analysis, where he teams up with recently widowed Gail MacKenzie (Audrey Dalton) and Dr. Jess Rogers (Hans Conried).

A young couple disappear after going for a swim. U.S. Navy divers investigate and discover a giant egg and the body of one of the victims on the ocean floor. The divers are attacked by a giant mollusk, which kills one of the divers. The mollusk attacks the boat, but Twill stabs it in the eye with a grappling hook.

​The Giant Gila Monster (1959)

* 3.4/10

The Giant Gila Monster is a 1959 hot rod/monster/science fiction film, directed by Ray Kellogg and produced by Ken Curtis. This low-budget B-movie starred Don Sullivan, a veteran of several low budget monster and zombie films, and Lisa Simone, the French contestant for Miss Universe of 1957, as well as comedy relief Shug Fisher and KLIF disc jockey Ken Knox. The effects included a live Mexican beaded lizard (not an actual Gila monster) filmed on a scaled-down model landscape. The movie is considered a cult classic.

PlotThe movie opens with a young couple, Pat Wheeler (Grady Vaughn) and Liz Humphries (Yolanda Salas), parked in a bleak, rural locale overlooking a ravine. A giant Gila monster attacks the car, sending it into the ravine and killing the couple. Later, some friends of the couple decide to assist the local sheriff (Fred Graham) in his search for the missing teens. Chase Winstead (Sullivan), a young mechanic and hot rod racer, locates the crashed car in the ravine and finds evidence of the giant lizard.

However, it is only when the hungry reptile attacks a train (a model train set substituted as a low-budget effect) that the authorities realize they are dealing with a (roughly) 70-foot long venomous lizard. By this time, emboldened by its attacks and hungry for prey, the creature attacks the town.

It heads for the local dance hall, where the town's teenagers are gathered for a sock hop. However, Chase packs his prized hot rod with nitroglycerin and rigs it to speed straight into the Gila monster, terminating the lizard in a fiery explosion and heroically saving the town.

​King Kong (1976)

* 5.9/10

​King Kong is a 1976 American monster film produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by John Guillermin. It is a modern remake of the 1933 film of the same name about a giant ape that is captured and imported to New York City for exhibition. Featuring special effects by Carlo Rambaldi, it stars Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin and Jessica Lange in her first film role.

The remake's screenplay was written by Lorenzo Semple Jr., based on the 1933 screenplay by James Ashmore Creelman and Ruth Rose, and from the original idea by Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace.

The film was the fifth highest-grossing film of 1977 according to box office statistics compiled during its release by Variety. It won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and was also nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Sound.

Of the three King Kong films, it is the only one to feature the World Trade Center instead of the Empire State Building.

A sequel titled King Kong Lives was released in 1986.

PlotIn 1976, Fred Wilson, an executive of the Petrox Oil Company, forms an expedition based on infrared imagery which reveals a previously undiscovered Indian Ocean island hidden by a permanent cloud bank. Wilson believes that the island holds vast untapped deposits of oil, a potential fortune which he is determined to secure for Petrox. Unknown to Wilson or the crew, Jack Prescott, a primate paleontologist who wants to see the island for himself, has stowed away on the expedition's vessel, the Petrox Explorer. Prescott reveals himself when he warns the crew that the cloud bank may be caused by some unknown, and potentially dangerous, phenomenon.

The Crater Lake Monster (1977)

* 3.2/10

The Crater Lake Monster is a 1977 B-movie horror film directed by William R. Stromberg for Crown International Pictures, and starring Richard Cardella. The script was also written by Stromberg and Cardella, and their affiliation with The Crater Lake Monster marked the zenith of their careers.

The storyline revolves around a giant plesiosaur, akin to the Loch Ness Monster, which appears in Crater Lake in Northern California, near Susanville (not to be confused with the much more famous Crater Lake in Oregon). As people are attacked by the monster, the Sheriff (Cardella) investigates along with a group of scientists in order to stop the creature.

PlotIn Crater Lake, Northern California, Dr. Richard Calkins (Hyman) is informed by his colleague Dan Turner (Garrison) that he and his girlfriend Susan Patterson (Cobb) have made an incredible discovery in a nearby cave system. The three head down and discover a system of cave drawings, including what appears to be a depiction of people fighting off a Plesiosaurus, thus providing evidence that dinosaurs existed at the same time as man. However, a flaming meteorite crashes into the lake just overhead, resulting in a cave-in that destroys the cave system and the drawings, while the three scientists are barely able to escape alive. The local sheriff, Steve Hanson (Cardella), sees the meteorite crash and radios in the incident before continuing on his patrol.

Several months later, Sheriff Hanson meets with the three scientists to go search for the meteorite. Turner and Patterson dive down to the bottom of the lake, only to find that the meteorite is still too hot to recover and has resulted in the entire lake becoming significantly warmer than before, rising to approximately 90 degrees.

​King Kong Lives (1986)

* 3.8/10

King Kong Lives (released as King Kong 2 in some countries) is a 1986 American monster film directed by John Guillermin. Produced by De Laurentiis Entertainment Group and featuring special effects by Carlo Rambaldi, the film stars Linda Hamilton and Brian Kerwin. The film was a sequel to the 1976 remake of King Kong.

PlotKing Kong, after being shot down from the World Trade Center, is kept alive in a coma for about 10 years at the Atlanta Institute, under the care of surgeon Dr. Amy Franklin (Linda Hamilton). In order to save Kong's life, Dr. Franklin must perform a heart transplant and give Kong a computer-monitored artificial heart. However, he lost so much blood that a transfusion is badly needed, and to complicate matters, Franklin says there is no species of ape or other animal whose blood type matches Kong's. Enter adventurer, and eventual love interest, Hank "Mitch" Mitchell (Brian Kerwin), who goes to Borneo (Mitchell theorizes that Borneo and the island from the first movie were once part of the same landmass) and captures a giant female gorilla who is dubbed "Lady Kong." Mitchell brings her to the Institute so her blood can be used for King Kong's operation. The transfusion and the heart transplant are a success, but Kong escapes along with Lady Kong.

Archie Nevitt (John Ashton), an insane army lieutenant colonel, is called in with his men to hunt down and kill the two apes. Lady Kong is captured alive by Nevitt's troops and imprisoned; Kong falls from a cliff and is presumed dead.

​But as Franklin and Mitchell soon discover, Kong's artificial heart is beginning to give out, forcing them to try a jailbreak only to discover that Lady Kong is pregnant with Kong's offspring.

​Zarkorr! The Invader (1996)

* 3.7/10

Zarkorr! The Invader is a 1996 direct-to-video monster film directed by Michael Deak and Aaron Osborne, and produced by Full Moon Entertainment.

PlotIntelligent aliens who have been studying Earth for centuries decide to challenge mankind by sending in a 185-foot, laser-eyed monster called Zarkorr to wreak city-crushing havoc. Only one incredibly average young man, postal worker Tommy Ward (Rhys Pugh), can find the beast's weakness and save the planet with the help of a 6-inch-tall pixie (Torie Lynch), who says she is "a mental image projected into his brain" by the aliens. She explains that Zarkorr cannot be destroyed by weapons, but that the key to the monster's destruction lies within the monster itself. Tommy, chosen as an average human, is the one destined to fight Zarkorr, who is programmed to kill him. Tommy asks scientist Dr. Stephanie Martin (De'Prise Grossman) for advice about his mission, but everyone thinks he is crazy. He takes the scientist hostage, but manages to explain his predicament to one of the policemen, who believes him and helps him escape. Dr. Martin agrees to help him. Using computers belonging to a friend of hers, they establish that the monster, which is destroying city after city in the style of Godzilla, neither sleeps nor breathes. Going to the place where the monster first appeared, they come into possession of a strange metallic capsule that fell out of the sky at the time the monster arrived.

It is believed to be unopenable, but it opens by itself for Tommy as he touches it. He uses the top of the capsule as a shield, reflecting Zarkorr's laser rays back at him, and the monster dissolves into a small glowing sphere flying into space.

​Mighty Joe Young (1998)

* 5.6/10

Mighty Joe Young is a 1998 American adventure film based on the 1949 film of the same name. It was directed by Ron Underwood and stars Bill Paxton and Charlize Theron. In the newer film's version, the ape is much larger than in the original. The film grossed $50.6 million in the United States against a production budget of $90 million.

PlotAs a child, Jill Young witnesses the death of her mother, primatologist Ruth Young, and the mother of Joe, an infant mountain gorilla, at the hands of poachers led by Andrei Strasser, who loses his right thumb and trigger finger to Joe, swearing revenge.

Twelve years later, Jill has raised Joe, now grown to a height of 15 feet (4.6 m) and weighing 2,000 pounds (910 kg). As a result, other gorillas will not accept him and they are both now living in relative peace until a wildlife refuge director, Gregg O'Hara, convinces Jill they would be safer from poachers if they relocated to the United States.

The trio goes to Los Angeles, and win the hearts of the refuge staff at the conservancy, who put Jill in charge of Joe. Jill is approached by Strasser, who is now running a fraudulent animal preserve in Botswana, while actually selling animal organs on the black market. After seeing a news report about Joe, he is eager for revenge. At first Jill does not recognize Strasser, since Strasser's right hand is concealed in his coat pocket. He attempts to convince Jill that Joe would be better off in his wildlife refuge back in Africa.

​During a gala, Strasser's henchman, Garth, uses a poacher's noisemaker to scare Joe into a frenzy. Joe trashes the gala, with the intention of attacking Strasser, but is captured, and imprisoned in a concrete bunker.

​King Kong (2005)

* 7.2/10

King Kong is a 2005 epic monster adventure film co-written, produced, and directed by Peter Jackson. A remake of the 1933 film of the same name, the film stars Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, and, through motion capture, Andy Serkis as the title character. Set in 1933, King Kong tells the story of an ambitious filmmaker who coerces his cast and hired ship crew to travel to the mysterious Skull Island. There they encounter Kong, a legendary giant gorilla, whom they capture and take to New York City.

Filming for King Kong took place in New Zealand from September 2004 to March 2005. The project's budget climbed from an initial $150 million to a then-record-breaking $207 million. It was released on December 14, 2005 in Germany and on December 16 in the United States, and made an opening of $50.1 million. While it performed lower than expected, King Kong made domestic and worldwide grosses that eventually added up to $550 million, becoming the fourth-highest-grossing film in Universal Pictures history at the time. It also generated $100 million in DVD sales upon its home video release. The film garnered positive reviews from critics and appeared on several top ten lists for 2005. It was praised for its special effects, performances, sense of spectacle and comparison to the 1933 original. It won three Academy Awards for Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Visual Effects.

PlotIn 1933, during the Great Depression, New York City vaudeville actress Ann Darrow is hired by financially troubled filmmaker Carl Denham to star in a film. Ann learns her favorite playwright, Jack Driscoll, is the screenwriter. As their tramp steamer, the SS Venture, journeys to the mysterious Skull Island, Ann and Jack fall in love. Captain Englehorn has second thoughts about the voyage, prompted by crewmen Lumpy and Ben Hayes' speculation of trouble ahead.

​Cloverfield (2008)

* 7.0/10

Cloverfield is a 2008 American found footage monster horror film directed by Matt Reeves, produced by J. J. Abrams and Bryan Burk, and written by Drew Goddard. The film, which is presented as found footage shot with a home camcorder, follows six young New York City residents fleeing from a gigantic monster and various other smaller creatures that attack the city while they are having a farewell party. The film was well received by critics and it earned $170.8 million at the box office against a $25 million budget.​The film eventually served as the first installment of the Cloverfield franchise, which also consists of 2016's 10 Cloverfield Lane and the currently unnamed 2018 film formerly known as God Particle.

PlotThe film is presented as footage from a personal camcorder recovered by the United States Department of Defense in the area "formerly known as Central Park", bearing a disclaimer stating multiple sightings of a case designated "Cloverfield". The tape originally contained footage from the last day Rob and Beth had spent together, which later got overwritten in its majority by the events filmed during the night of Friday, May 22, 2009, the resulting tape alternating between the two.

The first segment is filmed by Rob on the morning of Monday, April 27. Rob and Beth wake up in an apartment after a night together and they make plans to go to Coney Island that day. The footage cuts to the evening of Friday, May 22, when Jason, Rob's brother, and his girlfriend, Lily, prepare a farewell party for Rob, who will be moving to Japan. Their friend Hud films testimonials during the party.

Pacific Rim (2013)

* 6.9/10

Pacific Rim is a 2013 American science fiction action film directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Burn Gorman, Robert Kazinsky, Max Martini, and Ron Perlman. The screenplay was written by Travis Beacham and del Toro from a story by Beacham. The film is set in the future, when Earth is at war with the Kaiju, colossal sea monsters which have emerged from an interdimensional portal on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. To combat the monsters, humanity unites to create the Jaegers, gigantic humanoid mechas each controlled by at least two pilots, whose minds are joined by a mental link. Focusing on the war's later days, the story follows Raleigh Becket, a washed-up Jaeger pilot called out of retirement and teamed with rookie pilot Mako Mori as part of a last-ditch effort to defeat the Kaiju.

Principal photography began on November 14, 2011, in Toronto and lasted through April 2012. The film was produced by Legendary Pictures and distributed by Warner Bros. It was released on July 12, 2013, in 3D and IMAX 3D, receiving generally positive reviews; the visual effects, action sequences, and nostalgic style were highly praised. While it underperformed at the box office in the United States, it was highly successful in other markets. It earned a worldwide total of more than $411 million—$114 million in China alone, its largest market—becoming Del Toro's most commercially successful film to date.

A sequel titled Pacific Rim Uprising, directed by Steven S. DeKnight and produced by Del Toro, with Kikuchi, Day, and Gorman reprising their roles, and Universal Pictures taking the film distribution is scheduled for release on March 23, 2018.

PlotIn 2013, huge alien sea monsters called Kaiju emerge from an interdimensional portal called the Breach at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

​Colossal (2016)

* 6.2/10

Colossal is a 2016 science fiction black comedy film directed and written by Nacho Vigalondo. The film stars Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis, Dan Stevens, Austin Stowell, and Tim Blake Nelson, telling a story about Gloria, an unemployed young writer played by Hathaway, who is unwittingly causing a giant monster to wreak havoc halfway across the world.

The film's world premiere was at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. It was released on April 7, 2017 by Neon, the company's first release. Filmed in six weeks on a budget of $15 million in Vancouver, the film received mostly positive reviews but only grossed $4 million at the box office.

PlotGloria is an unemployed writer struggling with alcoholism. Her errant behavior prompts her frustrated boyfriend Tim to break up with her and evict her from their New York City apartment. Forced to move back to her hometown in New England (the fictional Mainhead), Gloria reunites with her childhood friend Oscar, who now runs his late father's bar. Oscar is warm and welcoming to Gloria; he brings her an old television set for her unfurnished house and offers her a job at the bar to help her, which Gloria accepts.

Working at the bar aggravates Gloria's alcohol problem. Each shift, she hangs out and drinks until morning with Oscar and his friends, Garth and Joel, while sleeping it off on a bench near a children's playground. At the same time, a giant reptilian monster appears in Seoul, leaving death and destruction in its wake. Gradually, Gloria realizes that when she walks through the playground at exactly 8:05 am, she causes the monster to manifest and the creature's movements correspond with her own.

Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)

* 5.7/10

Pacific Rim: Uprising is a 2018 American science fiction film directed by Steven S. DeKnight (in his feature-film directorial debut) and written by DeKnight, Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder, and T.S. Nowlin. It is the sequel to the 2013 film Pacific Rim, with Guillermo del Toro, the director of the original, serving as a producer. The sequel stars John Boyega (also making his producer debut), as well as Scott Eastwood, Cailee Spaeny, Jing Tian, Adria Arjona, and Zhang Jin, with Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, and Burn Gorman returning from the original film. Set in the year 2035, the plot follows humanity again fighting Kaiju, giant monsters set on destroying the world.

Principal photography began in November 2016 in Australia. The film was released in the United States on March 23, 2018, by Universal Pictures, in 2D, Real D 3D, IMAX 3D and IMAX, and has grossed $266 million worldwide, making it the ninth highest-grossing film of 2018. It received mixed reviews from critics; with some calling the film inferior to del Toro's first film and a "tedious watch", criticizing the script, humor and direction, and others praising it as "fun, goofy entertainment", while praising the visual effects and performances of Boyega and Spaeny.​

PlotTen years after the Battle of the Breach, former Jaeger pilot Jake Pentecost – son of Kaiju War hero Stacker Pentecost – makes a living by stealing and selling Jaeger parts on the black market in the Los Angeles area. After he tracks part of a disabled Jaeger's power core to the secret workshop of fifteen years old Jaeger enthusiast Amara Namani, both are arrested by the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps after an altercation with Jaeger "November Ajax." Jake's adoptive sister and PPDC General Secretary Mako Mori gives Jake a choice between prison and returning to the PPDC as an instructor with Amara as his recruit.

​Upon arriving at a Shatterdome in China, Jake starts training Jaeger program cadets with his estranged former co-pilot Nate Lambert.

Rampage (2018)

* 6.2/10

Rampage is a 2018 American science fiction monster film directed by Brad Peyton, and loosely based on the video game series of the same name by Midway Games. The film stars Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Akerman, Jake Lacy, Joe Manganiello, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. It follows a primatologist named Davis Okoye, who must team up with George, a white gorilla who turns into a raging creature of enormous size following a rogue experiment, in order to stop two other giant monsters. It is the third collaboration between Peyton and Johnson, following Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012) and San Andreas (2015).

Principal photography began in April 2017 in Chicago. The film was released in the United States on April 13, 2018, by Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema, in 2D, RealD 3D and IMAX 3D formats. It has grossed $286 million worldwide, making it the ninth highest-grossing film of 2018. It received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for Johnson and Morgan's performances and the visual effects, and disapproval of the writing and faithlessness to the source material; it is the best reviewed video game film of all-time, according to Rotten Tomatoes.​

PlotAthena-1, a research space station owned by gene manipulation company Energyne, is destroyed after a laboratory rat mutates and wreaks havoc. A crew member, Dr. Kerry Atkins, is ordered to retrieve research canisters containing a pathogen by CEO Claire Wyden. Atkins is able to flee in the escape pod, but it disintegrates upon re-entry, killing her and leaving a trail of debris across the United States, including the Everglades, where a canister is consumed by an American crocodile, and a forest in Wyoming, where a gray wolf is exposed to the pathogen.

The Meg (2018)

* 6.1/10

The Meg is a 2018 science fiction thriller film directed by Jon Turteltaub with a screenplay by Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber, and Erich Hoeber, loosely based on the 1997 book Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror by Steve Alten. The film stars Jason Statham, Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose, Winston Chao, and Cliff Curtis, and follows a group of scientists who encounter a 75-foot-long (23 m) Megalodon shark while on a rescue mission at the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

The Walt Disney Studios originally purchased the film rights to the book in the 1990s, but after several years in development hell, the rights landed at Warner Bros. The film was eventually greenlit in 2015. Turteltaub and much of the cast joined by September 2016, and filming began the following month in New Zealand and ended in Sanya City of China in January 2017.

A Chinese-American co-production, The Meg was released in both countries on August 10, 2018, in RealD 3D. It has grossed over $465 million worldwide and received mixed reviews from critics, with some describing it as an entertaining B-movie and others calling it "neither good enough nor bad enough" to be fun.​

PlotJonas Taylor, a rescue diver, attempts to save a group of scientists trapped inside a nuclear submarine. As Taylor and Jordan Martin-Mackay are rescuing the last survivor, he sees the hull of the submarine being rammed in by an unknown creature. When he returns to the rescue vessel, two scientists are stuck in the damaged submarine. Taylor decides to leave, realizing that finishing the rescue would result in everyone perishing. The damaged sub then explodes. Taylor's account of the story stating that a giant sea creature caused the disaster was dismissed by Dr. Heller, believing that Taylor was affected with pressure-induced psychosis.